120 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 15 



and have had little trouble since, except 

 wit^h mismated queens. 



There is quite a number of hybrid bees 

 around me, and I find a mismated queen's 

 bees, although raised from yellow stock, to 

 have disease just as badly as the blacks. I 

 managed to get rid of my mismated queens 

 in the spring by uniting weak colonies with 

 them, of course killing first the hybrid 

 queen. I find the goldens better than the 

 three banders. The latter show the disease 

 somewhat. An occasional colony is to be 

 found that will have it seriously enough so 

 it will not store any surplus; but it is a rare 

 thing to find a colony of goldens that has 

 disease very badly. Some of them will show 

 a few cells in a dearth of honey, but nothing 

 serious. I find them just as hardy as the 

 other. 1 have the Doolittle and the Alley 

 strain. 



I mentioned the fact that I sulphured two 

 colonies. Well, I took those combs and hived 

 my Italian swarms on them that summer, 

 and they cleaned them up so that they re- 

 mained healthy I also took an Italian colo- 

 ny and shook it on to the brood of a diseased 

 colony. About a third of the brood was dead 

 with disease. That was during a dearth of 

 honey, and in two weeks nearly all this brood 

 was healthy. I believe the Italians are bet- 

 ter housekeepers than the others. They 

 clean the disease out as soon as a cell shows, 

 and do not give it an opp >rtunity to spread; 

 while the hybrids and blacks will let it lie 

 and rot, therebyinfectingthe adjoining cells. 



Where one has the real yellow goldens 

 the queens will sometimes mate with hybrid 

 drones that are qui'e yellow, thus producing 

 quite a yell ^w bee. having some black blood 

 in it, and subject to disease. Mr. Lamson, a 

 neighbor bee-keeper whose bees probably 

 took the disease from mine, Italianized with 

 the goldens. and his apiary is now nearly 

 free from disease. Others have Italianized 

 here the past summer. Mr Phillips, of 

 Washington, D C, visited my apiary twice. 

 He pronounced the d'sease the regular Eu- 

 ropean foul brood 



I bought a Carniolan queen, partly to test 

 them with the disease. They also remained 

 perfectly healthy. I change combs from one 

 hive to another, no matter if they do show 

 an occasional cell of disease, and feed any 

 honey I want to. In fact, I manage the bees 

 as if no disease existed. When 1 find a case 

 of disease with considerable diseased brood 

 I kill the queen, keep the queen cells cut 

 out. and in ten days give to it a ripe queen- 

 cell raispd from one of my best golden breed- 

 ers. This is only a modification of the Alex- 

 ander plan. I do not wa t quite as long, and 

 am very particular to see that the queen is 

 matedall right. If she is not. lexne^ttofind 

 another case of disease that fall or the fol- 

 lowing spring. My +heory is this: The bees 

 will clean out the diseased brood, and this 

 will put a check on the disease for several 

 weeks; and by this time brood from the 

 young queen is hatchirg. and these bees, if 

 the queen is purely mated, will free the 

 combs from disease if it does begin again. 



This spring I began the season with eighty 

 colonies. Three of them were disfased, 

 and had to be treated. Two were mismated 

 queens, and one was a three-bander. Sev- 

 eral others showed a few cells, but nothing 

 serious. I did not do any thing with these 

 except that I kept a record of the queens so 

 that I would not be using them as breeders. 

 I am also very careful about letting any thing 

 but pure drones fly. However, most of mine 

 are pure. I took 2000 lbs. of white comb 

 and 1000 of extracted, and from the fall flow 

 2000 lbs. of comb and 1000 of extracted, or a 

 total of 6000 lbs., and increased the 80 to 160 

 colonies. Some of the surrounding bee- 

 men have done better than this, as we have 

 had a good season. I noiv keep the bees in 

 two yards and winter in the cellar. With 

 the disease under control, and the wintering 

 problem solved, I feel as if I were on the 

 road to success, thanks to bee editors and 

 bee-men who are willing to give to begin- 

 ners their experience. 



Pierpont, Ohio. 



» I ^ I » 



ABSORBENT CUSHIONS VS. SEALED 

 COVERS. 



No Damp Cushions Found in Fifteen 

 Years 



BY A. E. JANSEN. 



I can not imagine why any one should be 

 troubled with dampness when using absor- 

 bent cushions. I have kept bees for fifteen 

 years, always wintered out of doors, never 

 with sealed covers, and have never had a 

 damp cushion unless the water came through 

 the roof, and have never lost more than one 

 or two out of fifty or sixty hives, with one 

 exception, and that was in the winter of 

 1903, when 95 per cent of all the bees in this 

 county, not in cellars, died. 1 lost 10 out of 

 50 hives. In referring to my diary I find the 

 bees did not have a fly from November 20 till 

 Feb. 12. Sealed covers may be just as good; 

 but why make a change when resuls can 

 hardly be better? I use double- walled chaff 

 hives of standard make, on stands made of 

 2x4 wood placed on the ground. The en- 

 trance is contracted to % or y% inch; two 

 sticks and a thin board a' e placed on the 

 frames, partly covering them; a tray five 

 inches deep is used to hold the cushion, 

 which is packed with oat chaff so full that 

 the telescope cover crowds it hard down on 

 the frames, leaving no space between the 

 cushion and the cover. The roof is thin, 

 covered with tarred paper folded around the 

 corners, and secured by a tin cap at each 

 corner and at the sides. Our winters are 

 very trying on hive covers. 1 hey must be 

 absolutely water-proof to stand the soaking 

 they get during long winter rains when cov- 

 ered with snow. 



FALL UNITING. 



U. S. Donis, p. 745, had trouble with unit- 

 ing bees. For fall work, select a day late in 

 November, when it is too cold for bees to 

 fly, and when they are likely to be confined 



